Customers have gone to leased DVRs because they're cheap, require no up front investment, have little (or no) risk, and incur no maintenance/ repair obligation.

For some reason you seem to equate making monthly payments with cheap - I do not consider paying $22.00/mo (cost of a inferior standard TWC DVR - the dual tuner whole home DVR is $29/mo) forever cheap.

You are correct in that total cost of ownership for a TiVo can not be known for certain until after you are no longer using it so if it is cheaper than an individual's cable option or not is unknown until you have owned it for several years.

However as I posted in another thread my TiVo HD's per month cost is now below $10/mo and going lower and my Premiere's cost is already below $15/mo. and heading down (note no cable cards as I am OTA only add $1.50/mo for them in the past and $2.50/mo going forward as TWC has raised the price) and those cost include hard drive upgrades for both units.

The math works whether you want to admit it or not. It's pretty simple to compute total cost of ownership using some basic assumptions, and the payback period is a lot less than the 8 years in your analogy. Of course, like a vehicle or any product you buy vs renting and paying forever, there is risk. Risk is the only factor that comes into play with buying a Tivo vs taking the 'free' DVR from a cable company.

Just like a vehicle, all mechanical systems will fail or require repair at some point. Some people want a new car every 3 years, so they sign a lease every 3 years. These people will pay a fortune over their lifetime to rent a car instead of buying a car. Sure they don't have to worry about repairs or extensive maintenance, but they are paying a steep premium for this. This is the same for people renting DVRs from their cable company. No worries about repair or paying repair bills, but you pay a much higher total cost - forever.

Certainly for most MSO customers, if they are fortunate enough not to need an out of warranty repair, and they don't mind using an "older" hardware version, the TiVo will end up saving them money in the long run.

The picture used to get more clouded when multi-room was involved because prior to the Mini, TiVo did not have anything compelling for multi-room and in many cases, the rental charges on multiple TiVo boxes would actually end up costing someone more than an MSO whole home solution.

With the Mini TiVo is ALMOST at parity with the MSOs.... again, assuming that someone does not have warranty issues and does not mind potentially using older gear when newer gear becomes available (flipping the TiVo gear is always an option but in many cases there is a multi hundred dollar hit associated with doing this).

$1,191 / $41.21 = 29 months to breakeven. If I keep my setup 4 years, I will save at least $783 using Tivo during that period. 5 years would equal $1,277. Those numbers assume no cable co. price increases on WHDVR service (yeah, right).

Some people wouldn't even need the MoCA adapter (I did because my P4 is not near an ethernet jack so I had to enable MoCA elsewhere). Even if my P4 completely failed to the point of being irreparable (unlikely), I could replace it with the monthly cost savings and still be ahead. And my analysis also gives no consideration to any market value of the P4 and Minis at the end of the usage period.

You are right, TiVo is more cost effective. So ask yourself the question of why more of those Cox customers aren't making the switch? Is it because they can't do math? Is it because of the up-front out-lay of nearly $1200? Is it because with the Cox solution everything just "works" and if it doesn't (or if newer gear comes out) Cox will just take care of it for "free" as part of the service?

I suspect it's a combination of all of those things, we'll have to see what kind of whole home bundle deals TiVo tries to do with the Mini later this year.

This is what I think TiVo needs to do in order to be more competitive;

1. Drop the price of the current Premiere 4 to $500 with lifetime for new subscribers.
2. Drop the price of the Mini, if purchased with the Premiere 4 to $199 for new subs.
3. Fix the tuner allocation issues.
4. Add market critical services to the Mini such as Netflix, etc.
5. In MSO markets in which TiVo knows the MSOs don't want them around, play up the long term cost savings of switching to TiVo with a new print and radio campaign.

That's the minimum I think they need to do to grow the subscriber base. Next level efforts need to include a redesigned Premiere-4 with faster silicone and integrated "stream" functionality for both Android and iOS.... as well as continued pressure on MSOs for on-demand functionality and a move away from Cable Cards towards an IP based (equipment agnostic) delivery mechanism.

You are right, TiVo is more cost effective. So ask yourself the question of why more of those Cox customers aren't making the switch? Is it because they can't do math? Is it because of the up-front out-lay of nearly $1200? Is it because with the Cox solution everything just "works" and if it doesn't (or if newer gear comes out) Cox will just take care of it for "free" as part of the service?

I suspect it's a combination of all of those things, we'll have to see what kind of whole home bundle deals TiVo tries to do with the Mini later this year.

I think it's some combination of all of those things PLUS the fact that most Cox customers in my market aren't even aware of Tivo as an alternative. As I mentioned elsewhere, my parents just switched to DirecTV and when I told them I went with Tivo, I got a blank stare...

I think for a lot of people it's just short term thinking. As long as on a monthly basis things appear to be cheaper in the short term that's all that matters. Sort of like people continuously re-financing home mortgages with the objective of lowering monthly payments without any consideration about long term prospects of all the fees + interest paid and never paying down principal much so that one day they would own the property out right. I personally like to avoid monthly payments and any kind of debt as much as possible but certainly looks like I'm in the minority. Trying to explain how TiVo can be a cheaper solution in the long run is not an easy argument to make so I usually don't bother and tell people if their main objective is to save money then TiVo is not the solution for them. i.e. Choose TiVo because of the feature set, not the price.

The math works whether you want to admit it or not. It's pretty simple to compute total cost of ownership using some basic assumptions, and the payback period is a lot less than the 8 years in your analogy. Of course, like a vehicle or any product you buy vs renting and paying forever, there is risk. Risk is the only factor that comes into play with buying a Tivo vs taking the 'free' DVR from a cable company.

Just like a vehicle, all mechanical systems will fail or require repair at some point. Some people want a new car every 3 years, so they sign a lease every 3 years. These people will pay a fortune over their lifetime to rent a car instead of buying a car. Sure they don't have to worry about repairs or extensive maintenance, but they are paying a steep premium for this. This is the same for people renting DVRs from their cable company. No worries about repair or paying repair bills, but you pay a much higher total cost - forever.

I'm sorry, but you are frankly either being stubborn or just do not understand. There is quite a bit more than risk that comes into play. You make blanket statements such as "you pay a much higher total cost - forever" but then you say the only issue is risk. Really, then if it's always cheaper with Tivo, where's the risk?

You also completely disregard that the "free" Tivo I'm talking about (the first one) is FREE. For many people VZ as an example provides a free - TOTALLY free, DVR. You will not save a penny by refusing it. Nothing. And it can serve as the basis for whole home. It does not even have a cablecard fee.

My advice before taking such a strong position (which is frankly impossible to defend) that Tivo is always cheaper in the long term is that you maybe ought to get out another excel worksheet and think about it.

Tivo is a premium service. They never, ever marketed themselves as being cheaper. Only on this site to I find people who insist that "Tivo is always cheaper" - as well as totally disregarding the massive up front cost to buy into the sale "number of devices" that they can get from the MSOs. Is Tivo worth it? I think so - for me. But I'm not going to be stubborn enough to refuse looking at reality (and my checking account) and say it's cheaper than the MSO.

$1,191 / $41.21 = 29 months to breakeven. If I keep my setup 4 years, I will save at least $783 using Tivo during that period. 5 years would equal $1,277. Those numbers assume no cable co. price increases on WHDVR service (yeah, right).

Some people wouldn't even need the MoCA adapter (I did because my P4 is not near an ethernet jack so I had to enable MoCA elsewhere). Even if my P4 completely failed to the point of being irreparable (unlikely), I could replace it with the monthly cost savings and still be ahead. And my analysis also gives no consideration to any market value of the P4 and Minis at the end of the usage period.

And actually, among other things, consider this.

You have less tuners than with Cox. You have only two recording tuners. One P4, two minis, either they can't watch live TV whatsoever (then you keep 4 recording tuners) only one can watch live TV (then you have 3 recording tuners) or both can independently watch live TV (then you have 2 recording tuners.

For some reason you seem to equate making monthly payments with cheap - I do not consider paying $22.00/mo (cost of a inferior standard TWC DVR - the dual tuner whole home DVR is $29/mo) forever cheap.

You are correct in that total cost of ownership for a TiVo can not be known for certain until after you are no longer using it so if it is cheaper than an individual's cable option or not is unknown until you have owned it for several years.

However as I posted in another thread my TiVo HD's per month cost is now below $10/mo and going lower and my Premiere's cost is already below $15/mo. and heading down (note no cable cards as I am OTA only add $1.50/mo for them in the past and $2.50/mo going forward as TWC has raised the price) and those cost include hard drive upgrades for both units.

I equate "cheap" meaning relatively small payment in terms of monthly payments. I equate "affordable" because many families don't have a couple thousand dollars to spend at once, IN ADDITION to their cable bill.

I get the HD cost coming down. Too bad it is (for whole house) now an antique and can't function in that space. No streaming capability whatsoever. So a unit purchased just a few years ago (when MSOs had whole house HD streaming, BTW) never could, and never will, be able to do that. Nor will it integrate with the "mini" (which decreases the number of tuners you can use to record)

I am totally willing to agree that under the right circumstances, Tivos can be more cost effective. I already did - I believe in this thread. However, there are some requirements to get that lower cost. The two most critical IMHO are the requirement to pay up front (which nobody here wants to talk about) a very very large amount of cash for whole house, AND the fact that you are locked in and must stay with Tivo for years without mechanical failure requiring maintenance/ repair. The other pieces I've mentioned also. The willingness to either accept that you won't get new technology or may be subject to MSO changes that obsolete your equipment in some way, and/or a willingness to believe that Tivo w/lifetime resale value will never ever suffer - and a willingness to go through the resale process while at the same time plunking down a butt load of more cash.

I equate "cheap" meaning relatively small payment in terms of monthly payments. I equate "affordable" because many families don't have a couple thousand dollars to spend at once, IN ADDITION to their cable bill.

If I had finance my TiVo HD with a 20% charge card it would still have been cheaper than renting a TWC DVR over the last 5years and the TiVo HD is still superior to what TWC is offering now.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wmhjr

I get the HD cost coming down. Too bad it is (for whole house) now an antique and can't function in that space. No streaming capability whatsoever. So a unit purchased just a few years ago (when MSOs had whole house HD streaming, BTW) never could, and never will, be able to do that. Nor will it integrate with the "mini" (which decreases the number of tuners you can use to record)

And if I destroy my TiVo HD now it will have cost me less than 1/2 the cost of renting one over the same period that was a bad deal how?

So lets price starting from scratch now say a 3 TV system. From TWC it would cost $47/mo for a dual tuner DVR and 2 more STBs. For a Premiere 4 and 2 Minis with lifetime & 3 yr warranties it would cost $1270. Even if I finance 100% of it at 20% for three years the payments would only be $48/mo.

The TiVo system is still superior to the TWC system and yes with the TiVo system you will have to upgrade someday and might have to do repairs after the 3 yr warranty, but there is a 100% grantee that I have to keep paying TWC monthly forever.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wmhjr

I am totally willing to agree that under the right circumstances, Tivos can be more cost effective. I already did - I believe in this thread. However, there are some requirements to get that lower cost. The two most critical IMHO are the requirement to pay up front (which nobody here wants to talk about) a very very large amount of cash for whole house, AND the fact that you are locked in and must stay with Tivo for years without mechanical failure requiring maintenance/ repair. The other pieces I've mentioned also. The willingness to either accept that you won't get new technology or may be subject to MSO changes that obsolete your equipment in some way, and/or a willingness to believe that Tivo w/lifetime resale value will never ever suffer - and a willingness to go through the resale process while at the same time plunking down a butt load of more cash.

I agree many people need or like monthly payments. I don't like monthly payments and believe in saving first purchasing second. While I don't really believe financing a DVR purchase is a good thing it is easy enough to do and in the end if you can afford renting a whole home DVR system it is very likely you can afford to finance one just as easily. So if someone really prefers to pay monthly it is easy enough to do with a purchase and therefor really shouldn't have much to do with someones renting versus owning decision.

You have less tuners than with Cox. You have only two recording tuners. One P4, two minis, either they can't watch live TV whatsoever (then you keep 4 recording tuners) only one can watch live TV (then you have 3 recording tuners) or both can independently watch live TV (then you have 2 recording tuners.

You also had to pay 100% up front.

I have as many tuners as I need. I've only allocated 1 tuner for live viewing on minis, because I'm the only one in our house that uses the minis for viewing live TV. I can't very well watch TVs in 2 different rooms at the same time. And 3 tuners is plenty for our household's recording needs. I'm not willing to pay Cox for more tuners that I don't really need.

Paying 100% upfront is absolutely irrelevant to me. I manage my money well, so if I identify a product that I find value in and fits with my budget, I simply buy it.

I'm sorry, but you are frankly either being stubborn or just do not understand. There is quite a bit more than risk that comes into play. You make blanket statements such as "you pay a much higher total cost - forever" but then you say the only issue is risk. Really, then if it's always cheaper with Tivo, where's the risk?

You also completely disregard that the "free" Tivo I'm talking about (the first one) is FREE. For many people VZ as an example provides a free - TOTALLY free, DVR. You will not save a penny by refusing it. Nothing. And it can serve as the basis for whole home. It does not even have a cablecard fee.

My advice before taking such a strong position (which is frankly impossible to defend) that Tivo is always cheaper in the long term is that you maybe ought to get out another excel worksheet and think about it.

Tivo is a premium service. They never, ever marketed themselves as being cheaper. Only on this site to I find people who insist that "Tivo is always cheaper" - as well as totally disregarding the massive up front cost to buy into the sale "number of devices" that they can get from the MSOs. Is Tivo worth it? I think so - for me. But I'm not going to be stubborn enough to refuse looking at reality (and my checking account) and say it's cheaper than the MSO.

Where is my free DVR on FiOS? I've been with them since Summer 2007. I've asked more than once and the result is the same. When I ask about a DVR they said it will cost me $17 a month. That I could not get a free one. If I could get a free one I would have picked one up a long time ago just to have it for VOD. But the cheapest I could get it was $10 and that was just for a STB without DVR features. Which does work the same for VOD but is still not free. And whether a DVR or a regular STB, they are not worth me getting one unless it costs me nothing.

EDIT: I just looked online again at FiOS. Not only is it still not free but the STB is now $12 a month. The DVR is still $17. But nowhere near free.

I do not have a free FIOS DVR either. I was paying a monthly fee for a pretty nasty STB just to keep on-demand, but I ended up turning that back in as well. The button refresh rates were so bad you had to memorize the menu hierarchy and just click and walk away – seriously… I am sure it has gotten better by now, at least I hope it has.

I do realize that some new customer packages have a DVR included as an incentive, but that is far from a universal option. I also do not believe that once you want to upgrade that "free" DVR in the future that it will be free.

On the other hand - it is a generous loss leader from Verizon if you are a new customer.

I'm a FiOS customer, since 2007, and have a free DVR. I am waiting delivery of my "upgrade" DVR (also at no cost). I received via email the tracking number of that DVR upgrade today. I realize not everyone "can" or "did" get that. I cannot explain who does, and who does not. But the fact that some people can (and do) must be weighed just as heavily as the fact that some of us have reported great resale value of our existing Tivo equipment with lifetime. Or that some of us have never reported a device failure. Or that some of us have had multiple device failures.

Again, saying this for clarity: I do no, will not, and have have, said that there are not situations where IF YOU SPEND OUT OF POCKET MONEY UP FRONT you can end up with a lower pro-rated cost per month with Tivo. That certainly can, and does happen. However, what many of you are apparently unwilling to admit in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, is that it is just as possible to see scenarios where Tivo IS more expensive EVEN if you spend the up front money.

I also think that people here are being extremely arrogant by diminishing the impact of having to pay that cash up front. Just because you, and I, are in a position where we find that to be acceptable and have the means, that is most certainly NOT the case for many many many people.

I'll say it again. Obviously paying up front is not terribly relevant to ANYONE here. Otherwise, there would be nobody on this site because that's what Tivo requires. I could care less if it's relevant to somebody in this thread or not. What it IS relevant to is the general public, and let me assure you, the general public is what drives the market, and what drives whether Tivo remains viable or not. If you think the fanatics on this site could financially support Tivo, you are most sadly mistaken.

I have as many tuners as I need. I've only allocated 1 tuner for live viewing on minis, because I'm the only one in our house that uses the minis for viewing live TV. I can't very well watch TVs in 2 different rooms at the same time. And 3 tuners is plenty for our household's recording needs. I'm not willing to pay Cox for more tuners that I don't really need.

Paying 100% upfront is absolutely irrelevant to me. I manage my money well, so if I identify a product that I find value in and fits with my budget, I simply buy it.

I'm very happy that you have as many tuners as you need, but that is meaningless. The facts in the comparison are that there are significant differences in the two systems that you are comparing. It means nothing to anyone else that you don't personally need those tuners that you lost. Others aren't making decisions based on your personal requirements. They're doing it based on theirs. That additionally goes for the paying up front part. As I've mentioned elsewhere, if we eliminated everyone on this site who could not "pay up front" the site would be absolutely empty. It is not our own personal capabilities we're discussing. It's the market.

And the facts of the market, as it exists today, proves emphatically that the requirement to pay up front is a constraint and that people in general simply do not appreciate or endorse it. There is no argument on this planet that gets around that fundamental truth.

I'm very happy that you have as many tuners as you need, but that is meaningless. The facts in the comparison are that there are significant differences in the two systems that you are comparing. It means nothing to anyone else that you don't personally need those tuners that you lost. Others aren't making decisions based on your personal requirements. They're doing it based on theirs. That additionally goes for the paying up front part. As I've mentioned elsewhere, if we eliminated everyone on this site who could not "pay up front" the site would be absolutely empty. It is not our own personal capabilities we're discussing. It's the market.

And the facts of the market, as it exists today, proves emphatically that the requirement to pay up front is a constraint and that people in general simply do not appreciate or endorse it. There is no argument on this planet that gets around that fundamental truth.

There are inherent differences in any comparison of two products that are not commodities. You're extrapolating your own opinions to the entire market. Your opinion apparently is that everybody needs 6 tuners. That's just objectively false.

I've simply provided a data point based on my individual circumstances. Although it's possible to get up to 6 tuners with Cox's WHDVR system, many customers are not doing so, because they don't want to manage 3 DVRs and don't need 6 tuners. The Cox WHDVR users that I know have two 2-tuner "master" DVRs and 1 or 2 extenders - so they have the same 4 tuners that I have. And by the way, if I wanted 6 tuners, I could have added a 2-tuner Premiere instead of one of my Minis for an additional $300 with lifetime. That would increase my breakeven period from 29 months to 36 months. Whoop-dee-doo.

I'm a FiOS customer, since 2007, and have a free DVR. I am waiting delivery of my "upgrade" DVR (also at no cost). I received via email the tracking number of that DVR upgrade today. I realize not everyone "can" or "did" get that. I cannot explain who does, and who does not. But the fact that some people can (and do) must be weighed just as heavily as the fact that some of us have reported great resale value of our existing Tivo equipment with lifetime. Or that some of us have never reported a device failure. Or that some of us have had multiple device failures.

Again, saying this for clarity: I do no, will not, and have have, said that there are not situations where IF YOU SPEND OUT OF POCKET MONEY UP FRONT you can end up with a lower pro-rated cost per month with Tivo. That certainly can, and does happen. However, what many of you are apparently unwilling to admit in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, is that it is just as possible to see scenarios where Tivo IS more expensive EVEN if you spend the up front money.

I also think that people here are being extremely arrogant by diminishing the impact of having to pay that cash up front. Just because you, and I, are in a position where we find that to be acceptable and have the means, that is most certainly NOT the case for many many many people.

I'll say it again. Obviously paying up front is not terribly relevant to ANYONE here. Otherwise, there would be nobody on this site because that's what Tivo requires. I could care less if it's relevant to somebody in this thread or not. What it IS relevant to is the general public, and let me assure you, the general public is what drives the market, and what drives whether Tivo remains viable or not. If you think the fanatics on this site could financially support Tivo, you are most sadly mistaken.

The biggest reason friends of mine don't use TiVo are as follows:
Hassle factor with Cable Cards VS cable co. DVR no Cable Card hassle
Unit stops working for any reason, must call TiVo or me VS just call Cable co and it will get fixed at no extra cost.
Upgrades with TiVo requires selling on E-Bay, or having me sell it for them on E-Bay VS just call the cable co and get a free upgrade.
Price is not any issue for my friends, at least in terms of TiVos cost to that of the cable co DVR, my friends (who do use TiVo) and myself use TiVo because we like the product, and the record time can be upgraded (by me again).
We all use Lifetime service and use the TiVo for 3 to 7 years, then sell them on E-Bay to fund a large part of the purchase price of newer TiVo models.
Because of the cable card hassle I don't talk up TiVo anymore to my friends as I don't want to take on any more TiVo responsible for others, I now have five of my friends using TiVo that all I want.
IMHO I don't think price is the biggest factor in TiVo not selling more units, except for some on this form nobody can figure out the cost of a cable co DVR as some are free, some have special deals, some people pay $ 7 to $9 per month for each extra cable card and A/O cost, I pay $1.15/month per card, (no A/O cost) don't know why but friends have the same cable system and pay $6.95 per card per month (after the first if no cable box) so cost is so different for everybody I don't think anybody can do a accurate costing between TiVo and a cable co DVR setup that would apply to most people.
Another factor is power usage, the TP uses about 25 watts, the Mini used about 5 watts, and some cable co DVRs use 45 or more watts, each watt cost about 10 cents per month (at 15 cents per KWH), so in my case at one time I had 7 Series 2s in my home at 45 watts each = 315 watts, now I have 3 Q4s and a Mini (still have 7 tuners) and I am using 80 watts, that a savings of about $23 to $24 per month in power for me.
YMMV

You have less tuners than with Cox. You have only two recording tuners. One P4, two minis, either they can't watch live TV whatsoever (then you keep 4 recording tuners) only one can watch live TV (then you have 3 recording tuners) or both can independently watch live TV (then you have 2 recording tuners.

Last I checked their "Whole Home" DVR was only 2 tuner as well (and only 500GB). The only reason it gets "Whole Home" distinction is because of MoCA connection to client set top boxes. But last I checked you could not even have 2 "Whole Home" DVRs talking to each other which is just stupid. On top of all that they charged for a truck roll installation of "Whole Home" DVR to make sure your coax + splitters, etc. can properly support MoCA and it wasn't cheap either.

FWIW, when I signed up for FiOS in 2011 they had several "deals" for new customers w/2 year commitment. One was "free DVR for life". The one I took was "crappy SD box for life" plus a $545 prepaid VISA card. So, at least in that case I can put an upfront cost to their DVR.

Which also means paying about $18/month for each and they don't even talk to each other.

You're right. I think the $15 Whole Home DVR fee applies separately to each DVR (otherwise the cost of a client box would be the same as the cost of another DVR at $8.50 per month, which makes no sense). So each Cox DVR costs $23.50 per month ($15 DVR service fee + $8.50 equipment rental) and each Cox client is $8.50 (equipment rental only). My previous analysis was essentially comparing a 2-tuner Cox WHDVR system to my 4-tuner Tivo setup.

So the revised Cox WHDVR cost per month in my analysis to get 4 DVR tuners goes even higher:

Wow, I'm not sure how you're making that math. My current setup with Tivo is well over $2000 including lifetime.

BTW, if anyone is saying those HDs with lifetime are worth $300, I've had one on eBay. No takers at either a $250 starting bid or $300 buy it now. Auction ends tomorrow. Seems as though maybe the resale value is in fact dropping. Who knows.

Wow, I'm not sure how you're making that math. My current setup with Tivo is well over $2000 including lifetime.

BTW, if anyone is saying those HDs with lifetime are worth $300, I've had one on eBay. No takers at either a $250 starting bid or $300 buy it now. Auction ends tomorrow. Seems as though maybe the resale value is in fact dropping. Who knows.

I sold a stock 160GB TiVo HD box in October for $300 + shipping on eBay. Last week (literally) I sold a 2nd one that I popped a $20 750GB WD drive in. That one sold for $349. It helps if you clearly state it has Lifetime AND you keep all of the original boxes and accessories.

If you look at sold listings for TiVo HD, you will see that very few of them sell for much less than $275 if they are working.

You have virtually no description, no detailed pictures, and no mention of any included remote/cables/accessories or original box. The one picture you do have shows the unit tossed into a dusty cabinet. To top it off, you have a stock 160GB hard drive.

If you had about 10 more pictures taken in a clean environment, listed what comes with the unit (or doesn't) and threw a 500GB+ drive in it, you'd get $300 in a few hours on eBay.

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